In the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Battle of Chibi is one of the most wonderful episodes, in this plot, Sun Liu's coalition forces were originally at a disadvantage, but after Zhou Yu and Pang Tong's lianhui, Huang Gai's bitter meat plan, and Zhuge Liang's grass boat borrowing arrows, and Qiao borrowing the East Wind, cao Cao became a party that fled with less, and even, if Guan Yu had not deliberately spared Cao Cao's disaster in Huarong Dao, the three kingdoms chaos would probably have ended prematurely.
In the eyes of many people, the most important reason why Sun Liu's coalition army was able to win the Battle of Chibi was that Zhuge Liang borrowed the East Wind to ensure that the fire attack could be carried out smoothly. In fact, if we carefully read the novel, we will find that there is a link that is more important, that is, Zhou Yu used Jiang Gan to implement a counter-plan and eliminated a very key character - Cai Mao.
Cai Mao is Liu Biao's uncle and also Zhuge Liang's uncle, because Zhuge Liang's father-in-law, Huang Chengyan, also married the daughter of the Cai family, and is Liu Biao's brother-in-law, that is, Huang Chengyan's daughter, that is, we often say Huang Yueying, is Cai Mao's niece, so zhuge Liang naturally wants to follow his wife to call Cai Mao's uncle. However, in that chaotic world, most ambitious people, even the lives of their own children, may not care, and Cai Mao, in the absence of interests, will naturally not rely on his feelings and righteousness to side with Zhuge Liang. So after Liu Biao's death, he ignored Liu Bei, who had been dormant in Jingzhou for seven or eight years, turned around and instigated Liu Chun and ceded Jingzhou to Cao Cao.
Born from the Cai clan of Jingzhou, Cai Mao was certainly not a straw bag, but a famous general who was very good at commanding the water army, and even Zhou Yu was jealous of him. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms reads: "Yu spied on his cold water and was horrified: 'This is the magic of the water army!' Asked: 'Who is the Admiral?' Left and right: "Cai Mao, Zhang Yun." Yu Si said: "The two of them have lived in Jiangdong for a long time, and they are familiar with water warfare, and I will design without these two people, and then I can break Cao." It was Zhou Yu who realized Cai Mao's threat that he borrowed jiang gan's hand to convey to Cao Cao the false news that the two had betrayed Cao Cao and defected to Jiangdong.
Cao Cao was already suspicious, and it was too easy for Jingzhou to get it, so after he saw the fake letter brought back by Jiang Gan, he did not hesitate to kill Cai Mao and Zhang Yun. It was precisely because of this design that the Cao army lost the only two sailor generals, and the later serial plan was implemented, laying the foundation for the implementation of the fire attack. Poor Cai Mao, bent on plotting for Cao Cao, helped Cao Cao win Jingzhou, even his nephew Liu Chun and his sister Lady Cai were killed by Cao Cao, did not betray, but single-mindedly trained the water army for Cao Cao, but became cannon fodder. Even if he was killed, Cao Cao reacted that he had won Zhou Yu's plan, but for the sake of face, he did not dare to admit it, falsely claiming that Cai and Zhang were killed because they violated military discipline and carried a huge black cauldron on their backs.
That is to say, Cai Mao, as Zhuge Liang's uncle, sided with Cao Cao instead, but eventually died at the hands of Cao Cao, failing to obtain the benefits of his life, nor did he gain a reputation after his death, which is indeed a tragic figure. Of course, Cai Mao did not worry about the relationship with Zhuge Liang, after Cai Mao was wrongfully killed, Zhuge Liang would not be upset about this cheap uncle, but was likely to secretly clap his hands and praise happiness.
However, fortunately, the encounter with Cai Mao was processed by interpretation, and in the real history, he was not killed in an inexplicable way, but was very kind to Cao Cao, and successively served as a lieutenant of Zhonglang, Sima and Changshui, and was awarded the title of Marquis of Hanyangting. Moreover, historical records record that Cao Cao "treated him with the old ways" as he was.
All the information in this article comes from books such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Notes on the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms", and the editor guarantees the authenticity of the content, without any innuendo and without any politics.